The avant-garde movements of Dada & Surrealism continue to have a huge influence on cultural practice especially in contemporary art with its obsession with sexuality fetishism & shock tactics. In this new treatment of the subject Hopkins focuses on the many debates surrounding these movements: the Marquis de Sades Surrealist deification issues of quality (How good is Dali?) the idea of the readymade attitudes towards the city the impact of Freud attitudes to women fetishism & primitivism. The international nature of these movements is examined covering the cities of Zurich New York Berlin Cologne Barcelona Paris London & recenlty discovered examples in Eastern Europe. Hopkins explores the huge range of media employed by both Dada & Surrealism (collage painting found objects performance art photography film) whilst at the same time establishing the aesthetic differences between the movements. He also examines the Dadaist obsession with the body-as-mechanism in relation to the Surrealists return to the fetishized/eroticized body.